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Consultation on our budget proposals for 2025/26 and Medium Term Financial Plan 2026-2029


Have your say on our budget proposals for 2025/26, as well as on how we meet the financial challenges we face over the next four years.

Summary

We are a well performing council, and regularly measure ourselves against similar councils at a regional, national and statistical level. However, like all councils, we are facing unavoidable financial pressures. It is becoming more challenging to balance budgets with the funding received from the government and the income we are allowed to raise locally.

Despite some additional government funding and assuming that there will be continued annual increases in Council Tax, we predict that we will still need to make £64.1 million in savings over the next four years. This is an increase in savings from our last predication. The increase continues to be is mainly caused by rising costs and increasing levels of demand, particularly for adult and children's social care.

Although we will continue to make as many savings as possible and work as efficiently as we can, especially in areas such as management and administration services, it is becoming increasingly difficult to do this. We have always tried to minimise the effect on front line services, however, without further funding from government, some of these services will be more affected in the coming years. Ultimately to achieve these savings over the next four years it will be extremely challenging and should not be under-estimated.

The total savings we need to make next year is likely to be £21.7 million. This is around £4.9 million more than we predicted for 2025/26 last year which was £16.8 million. We have already agreed £3.2 million of savings for 2025/26, and £8.3 million of savings for the next four financial years. That would still leave us with an increased £21.7 million gap for 2025/26, so we are also continuing to ask for your views on where we could make these savings, as well as the savings we'll need to make in future years.

We would like to hear your views on:

  • the approach we are continuing to use to find savings as shown in next year's proposal totalling £3.2 million for 2025/26
  • our proposal to increase Council Tax for 2025/26 by the maximum of 2.99%
  • whether, if we were given more flexibility from central government, we should consider raising Council Tax beyond the current allowed maximum amount
  • what other services we should continue to prioritise for savings, to cover the remaining gap for next year (to meet the overall £21.7 million total for 2025/26), and longer term, to achieve the remaining £64.1 million in savings needed over the next four years

Below, you can read more details about the challenges we face, what is affecting our budget predictions, the savings we propose from back office, efficiencies, increasing fees, and the changes to how we deliver front line services. We also describe our reasoning for increasing the Council Tax for next year and list the services which may need to be targeted for savings either next year or over the next four years.

Proposed approach

Wherever possible we have tried to make savings through efficiencies and raising additional income while protecting front line services. The proposals we've already identified for 2025/26 have four elements.

Priorities for further savings for 2025/26 and the following three years

Although we have identified several savings proposals for next year, there remains a gap in funding of £21.7 million for 2025/26, and a £64.1 million over the following three years. We again need your views on how we might make further savings.

Have Your Say

The deadline for comments was 5.00pm on Friday 1 November 2024.

Next steps

Your feedback will help us shape and finalise our budget proposals for 2025/26, as well as help us look ahead longer term to make future savings. It is expected that further savings proposals will be proposed in December 2024, and we will consult with you at that point. Our Cabinet and full Council will then review all the proposals and agree our savings plan in February 2025. We expect further consultation on how to shape future savings proposals will be carried out next year.



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